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Banque Privée Edmond de Rothschild Europe, the Luxembourg based subsidiary of the Geneva-based LCF Rothschild Group, has emerged as one of the collaborators of a new European funds venture hoping to tap into the demand for more liquid, tighter-regulated hedge funds.
Next Generation Absolute Return, an initiative which includes a Ucits Sicav and a Ucits fund of funds, has been set up by Switzerland-based Decision Analytics Advisory Partners and offers investors access to a funds family product range comprised of Ucits managed by carefully selected investment managers.
Decision Analytics brings together several European financial services firms in addition to
FrontPoint Partners has added an investment team to its platform which will manage a direct lending strategy dedicated to originating and investing in secured loans to small and mid-sized businesses primarily in the US.
Stephen Czech will lead the team and will be joined by Mark Newlun, Sze Ling Wan and Paul Ahrens.
The team will be based in FrontPoint’s Greenwich, Connecticut office.
Czech has over 21 years of leveraged lending and corporate finance experience and was the founder and portfolio manager of Contrarian Capital Finance, a middle market-focused direct lending strategy. At Contrarian, Czech successfully built the investment team
Standard & Poor’s has launched an index designed to reflect the price momentum that physical commodities, interest rates and currencies tend to exhibit over the long-term due to their cyclicality.
The S&P Dynamic Futures Index offers rules-based exposure – both long and short – across a portfolio of 24 liquid global commodity and financial futures contracts grouped into 14 sectors.
“With the ability to go long or short sectors, the S&P DFI is designed to capture the economic benefit over long time periods derived from both rising and declining trends within a cross-section of the futures markets,” says Michael
The Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Fund Index gained 0.17 per cent in January as hedge funds posted positive performance despite market reversals.
The best performing strategy in January was fixed income arbitrage (2.02 per cent) with managers finding a number of opportunities in the credit markets, which as a rule became uncorrelated to equity markets with several sectors showing positive performance.
Event driven managers produced generally positive returns (1.42 per cent), largely driven by gains from credit positions and hedging strategies that mitigated equity losses.
Event driven managers were also supported by ongoing technical conditions as credit markets held steady in
Accounting firm Anchin, Block & Anchin has launched Anchin, Block & Anchin (Cayman) to provide audit services to funds registered in the Cayman Islands.
Anchin Cayman’s resident member is Philip Rankin.
“The Cayman Islands have developed into one of the most popular jurisdictions for off-shore funds,” says Jeffrey I. Rosenthal, partner in charge of Anchin’s financial services practice. “There has been tremendous growth in the number of funds established in the Cayman Islands, so it was only natural for us establish a presence there.”
Anchin Cayman has been approved by the Cayman Island Monetary Authority, the regulatory agency of the
It will be the fundamentals that really drive returns for the Asian markets during 2010, an expert has claimed.
A new index has been launched that is designed to track the prices of commodity and financial futures contracts, hedge funds may be interested to discover.
Barclays Capital, the investment banking division of Barclays Bank, has appointed Robert J. Champion de Crespigny AC to the advisory panel for its natural resource investments business, headed by Mark Brown.
Champion de Crespigny is the founder and former executive chairman and chief executive of Normandy Mining until its merger with Newmont Mining in 2002.
He has received several awards recognising his contribution to Australian business and the community, in particular the Companion of the Order of Australia, Australia’s highest honour.
He is currently chairman of Crosby|Textor Research Strategies Results, non-executive director of S&B Industrial Minerals (Athens-based) and a board
Alternative asset management group Gottex Fund Management has formed a venture with FrontPoint Partners to provide its clients with access to the direct lending sector.
Steve Czech will join FrontPoint and will be located in Greenwich, Connecticut.
He will manage the FrontPoint direct lending strategy and a customised Gottex direct lending strategy. The strategy is based on making secured loans to US and European middle market companies.
Czech has 20 years of experience in direct lending and leveraged finance.His team brings direct lending, corporate finance and corporate restructuring experience.
FrontPoint is a multi-strategy investment management firm managing approximately USD7bn of
The London Metal Exchange is launching the world’s first cobalt and molybdenum futures contracts to be traded on exchange on 22 February.
The new contracts will introduce regulated exchange pricing, transparency, risk management and clearing to these two metals used in a wide range of applications.
Cobalt and molybdenum are largely by-products from nickel and copper mining. Together their market value was estimated at around USD7bn in 2009, a year of low prices as a result of the global economic downturn. In comparison, the tin market’s value last year was close to USD5bn.
Historically cobalt and molybdenum have
